


You've Got Nothing, Harry Potter.

by weasleyisourking (dinnafashnow)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-29
Updated: 2003-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinnafashnow/pseuds/weasleyisourking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written many, many moons ago for <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/stoptocheer/235931.html">You Shoot We Score- The Quidditchfic Challenge</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've Got Nothing, Harry Potter.

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Harry Potter can't grasp the Snitch.

 

 

 

In his head it scorches his fingers and he has to let it go, and when he wakes up gasping and sweaty, he looks at his palm and there's a golden burn where the Snitch should be, but isn't.

 

 

 

Harry thumbs his Captain's badge idly and wonders if it might look better on Ron. Then again, he's been wearing his Captain's badge for three weeks now, so maybe he should just keep it on. When it first came in the mail, Harry thought Dumbledore had caved and decided to make him a Prefect instead of Ron, but Harry's badge has a big "C" in the centre instead of a "P". He wears it on his robes through the halls and it matches Draco Malfoy's Slytherin "C". It matches Owen Cauldwell's Hufflepuff "C", and Morag McDougal's Ravenclaw "C". Nobody else has a "C" quite like Harry's, and McGonagall winks at him in the halls and shakes her fist triumphantly, accompanied by a tight nod and pursed lips, because this year is Harry Potter's year. Gryffindor's year, and Harry Potter's year, because he's the youngest Seeker in a century and now he's the Captain of the team, he's got the moves, he knows the victory dances and surely he's the best choice for captaincy because he's Harry Potter.

 

 

 

Harry feigns sleep in his porridge bowl at breakfast when Ron mentions training. This happens daily for exactly eight days until Harry decides he wants toast for breakfast and spends half an hour in the bathroom scrubbing jam off his forehead.

 

 

 

Worse than the Snitch in his head, the one hovering inches away, the one he can see poking a tongue at him and spraying spit all over his face while his fingers twitch. Inches away and he can't - work - his - fingers.

 

 

 

Owen Cauldwell snatches the Snitch away from where it's blowing raspberries in Harry's face, and apologises after the game. Harry calls him a Hufflepuff, like it's some sort of insult, and sits in the steam of the locker room for three hours, staring at his fingers.

"I couldn't fucking catch it." Harry's a sixteen-year-old boy, and says fuck without regretting it. He knows he's talking to himself.

 _If you can't catch the Snitch, what's left for you to do well?_ Harry doesn't much care for the voice in his head. _You've got nothing, Harry Potter._

 

 

 

Harry gets up early one morning and lets both Bludgers loose on the pitch, batting wildly at the air until he dangles from his broom with one hand, bat still flailing in his fist. Gryffindor beats Ravenclaw by a narrow margin and Ginny Weasley holds onto the Snitch as a keepsake of her game. Andrew Kirke asks Harry for a quiet word aside and says if he has to play Chaser in the next game then he's just not going to play at all, and does Harry know he's holding the Beater's bat incorrectly?

 

 

 

He can't seem to do anything but Captain, and he can't even do that well. He avoids touching the Quaffle by taking over practices and drifting above the others, calling out directions and assembling plays he's just stolen from Oliver Wood's old notes anyway. Angelina did the same because there's nothing left scrawled in her handwriting in the captain's locker room. All the strategies bear the O.W. initials in the corner and Harry bundles them all together, making a note to rewrite them all and burn the originals, initialling the corner of each copy with H.P.

 

 

 

Ginny Weasley catches Harry up in the halls between classes a week before the Lions play the Serpents.

"Am I taking Seeker against Slytherin?"

Harry can't bear to relinquish his spot against Draco Malfoy, who's still laughing over Harry's efforts against the Bludgers. "Nah, I'll be fine."

"Malfoy's good, you know."

"He's not as good as me."

"... of course he's not."

Harry doesn't reply because it's not polite to hit girls.

"See you at training, then."

 

 

 

Draco Malfoy catches the Snitch like he's dusting off his collar. He catches the Snitch like he's polishing his nails; he catches the Snitch like Harry could once and will again soon, but just not this day. Malfoy plucks it out of the air and buffs it against his green robes while its wings are still flitting eagerly, he names it "Potter" and crushes it into his palm before pulling up neatly over the crowd of triumphant green screams. Malfoy lifts his leg over his broom, dropping down onto outstretched hands and smirking, smirking, smirking. Harry is sure that Potter the Snitch wears Malfoy's smirk as well.

 

 

 

Gryffindor comes last in the Quidditch Cup, and Draco Malfoy laughs the hardest. Ron Weasley punches Malfoy across the jaw in front of the entire school and has his Prefect's badge taken away from him on the spot. Harry can't breathe.

 

 

 

Harry Potter sits in the Quidditch stands at the end of sixth year. The air's hot and his scowl is old, tuned to rest on his lips every time he comes near those damned hoops and he can't even look at his Firebolt any more. It sits in the corner of his dorm room and collects dust, and the spiders like the twigs. He still wears his Captain's badge diligently, stuck to his robes and burning a hole in them, and only Harry can smell the singed material, the blistering flesh protecting his heart. He scalds his fingers as he unpins it and breaks the clasp under his heel.

 

 

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End file.
